Palantir Buyback Plan Shows Need for New Silicon Valley Pay System - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/business/dealbook/palantir-buyback-plan-shows-need-for-new-silicon-valley-pay-system.html <comment><USER3> Boy this article is a very friendly interpretation of Scott Kupor's blog post.

From NYTimes:

> He [Scott Kupor] also suggests a longer period for employees to exercise > options after they leave, up to 10 years. That figure is endorsed by Y > Combinator in an argument that any lesser period is unfair to employees.

Makes it seem like Scott Kupor is on the leading edge of caring about employees, in agreement with YC (which has actually been employee friendly in words and actions in regard to stock options).

However, read Scott's actual blog post and he refers to the 10 year exercise idea incredulously:

> The 10-year "solution" thus takes money/option value out of the pockets of > the current (and growing) employee base to line the pockets of former > employees who are no longer contributing to the business.

> Talk about disenfranchising your remaining employees and not being able to > attract new ones.

Good reminder to always read your primary sources.

<comment><USER4> Indeed it is. I particularly like the 'no longer contributing to the business' part, as if the work done by the original employees isn't what the current business was built on, at a discounted rate if their stock options are worthless. And as if the stock options were the only reason they're having trouble attracting quality talent.

Stock options seem attractive as a form of compensation, since the hope is that you're working for a unicorn and one day you'll be fabulously rich, but the cash equivalent is better more often than not. It's just a form of risk transfer from those who have plenty to those who hope to have plenty by dint of talent and hard work. Having been burnt, I won't do it again.

<comment><USER5> I actually disagree with the 10yr time frame (although will admit it has its merits), but also agree with some of your logic. I just think that the 10yr "fix" solves some problems and creates others. I think this issue is that you should: A) not rob former employees of accrued stock value B) probably try to somewhat reduce incentives to leave if the company is going to continue to do well

There are a few problems I see here: 1) stock option grants are completely arbitrary and sometimes end up very wrong 2) it's hard to fix that in the future because you'll end up at a higher strike price 3) end up being expensive and tax inefficient to exercise

The closest I've seen to people who seem to get this and have sensible solutions are Andrew Mason at Detour (progressive equity) and Dustin Moskovitz at Asana (larger grants, but back loaded into years 4-6).

I have great respect for Adam D'Angelo at Quora for suggesting a solution to the problem, have known him in school he's certainly smarter than me on almost every axis of intelligence, but I think there are other potentially creative solutions that might be better (although I don't know tax compliance).

For example I think you could keep the status quo, but offer the option for employees to exchange their options for shares (white meat) at the time they can exercise. Example you have options for 100 shares at a strike price of $50, at the time you leave the shares are worth $100, instead of having to come up with $5000, you just get $50 shares free and clear. I think there's still a tax hit issue, but at least it's not doubled with paying for the shares.

<comment><USER6> There's a huge tax hit. Giving shares is taxed as ordinary income.

<comment><USER7> All of these things should be taxed as ordinary income. Companies shouldn't be able to do an end-run around taxation by giving you valuable stuff instead of giving you money directly.

<comment><USER8> > Companies shouldn't be able to do an end-run around taxation by giving you > valuable stuff

They already do in the form of health and retirement benefits.

<comment><USER9> And tying an individual's future (health insurance, retirement, immigration status) to an employer is a bad thing.

<comment><USER10> > And tying an individual's future (health insurance, retirement, immigration > status) to an employer is a bad thing.

Retirement isn't really 'tied to an employer', in that you can still open an IRA without an employer[0], or use a non-tax-advantaged account for retirement savings (most people outside the military or government service use non-tax- advantaged accounts for at least a portion of their retirement, since the IRA and 401(k) contribution limits are too low for most people to survive on during retirement).

This might have been different 50 years ago, where employer-driven pensions were more common, but today, the only real way your employer impacts your retirement is the 401(k).

The purpose of both the IRA and the 401(k) is to provide people with an extra incentive to plan for retirement. Putting away $450/month towards your retirement[1] can be unpleasant, but if you're getting, say, $90 that back (in the form of lower tax withholdings/taxes due), it makes it a bit easier, because that's effectively only $360 out-of-pocket.

The incentives work similarly for the 401(k), except the tax savings work out for the _employer_ as well, meaning that they are incentivized to give you some portion of your compensation in the form of 401(k) matching (ie, they have an extra incentive to nudge you towards saving more of your _own_ money for retirement).

Personally, I do believe that, if you do not have access to a 401(k) through an employer, your IRA contribution limit should be raised by $17,000 (which is the 401(k) contribution limit for individual contributions). But without employer contributions, at most that's saving you less than $6,000 - <USER2> that's if you're already at the very top marginal tax brackets (even making $100K gross in NYC, the most heavily taxed jurisdiction in the country, won't be taxed at 35%).

[0] Well, you can't contribute more than your total annual income to an IRA, but if you're making less than $450/month and living in the US, retirement planning is not your most immediate problem.

[1] ie, enough to max out your IRA contribution limit

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This sounds like a company in big trouble and trying desperately to stem attrition and improve tanking morale.

According to crunchbase they're basically owned by a private equity firm now (which is rarely a fun place to be) and are raising something like a billion dollars a year -- which basically appears to be around what their operating costs are (employee count of that year * $250k/yr).

They're either not bringing in any real revenue, or growing at the rate of revenue. Multiple raises per year (of weirdly different values) indicate frequent requests for more money.

Are they growing or are they dying? Either way they aren't doing it through revenue, and they're not going public so the financials stay very hidden.

<comment><USER12> Anybody who thinks this offer is meant to benefit employees isn't looking much beyond the surface. The fact that it includes a release of claims, a noncompete clause, and an NDA is a solid clue that this move is intended to benefit Palantir and not employees.

Edit: forgot noncompete clause.

<comment><USER13> That's all standard stuff. If I was at a company for 11 years, I'd sure as hell want to cash out. Whether their offer is a good price or not, who knows.

<comment><USER14> You can only cash out 12.5%. 12 month non-compete for a small cash out is a pretty double edged deal.

<comment><USER15> But if you are still working there and do not plan to move then being able to liquidate up to $500,000 worth of shares seems like a very good offer.

<comment><USER16> If you can liquidate $500,000 worth of shares, that means you still have at least $3,500,000 worth of shares in a company that has no plans to ever go public.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Comments on this thread are not very interesting and generally off topic. This article points out an issue in SV which is that it's hard for employees to get value out of options held in companies that do not go public.

One reason for this not mentioned in the article is that in the US the tax burden is extreme - partially because when it was implemented it expected companies to go public.

If you hold options in a private company you get taxed on the exercise of those options based on the fair market spread which is the difference in price between your original strike price (the price of the options when they were granted to you) and the current fair market valuation. This is taxed as income.

This is problematic since once exercised you're holding shares of an illiquid asset (since the company is not public) and they're difficult to sell. This means even if you save up enough money to exercise your options you'll get hit with a potentially enormous tax bill due that year that you can't easily sell your newly exercised options to pay for. Additionally when you sell the actual shares after you've exercised them you get taxed _again_ on the sale.

The one exception to this is if your options are ISOs (incentive stock options) then the delta between the strike price and the fair market value isn't taxed immediately, but it does count towards AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) and it's fairly easy to hit the AMT while exercising options (meaning you could only exercise a tiny amount per year tax free).

All of these things make it extremely difficult to realize any value in a private company without enormous amounts of upfront cash and also losing roughly half to taxes. It also makes it extremely difficult to exercise options outside of a liquidity event. This can also make it hard to leave a company since the agreements are often 90 days to exercise after leaving or you lose your options (there's also usually a ten year expiration date).

If companies in SV intend to stay private and don't want their employees to view the options as impossible to liquidate we'll probably see an uptick in liquidity events like this one. The companies that value their employees will probably figure out a way to make this work.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, the ISO spread with the AMT is bullshit that basically keeps the plebes in their place by not actually letting them get any windfall. However it seems like the real problem is exercising post-IPO. In the post-IPO world, you're dealing with say a 5x to 10x spread, possibly even more. In the pre-IPO world, your spread is probably 2x at most, which is much more manageable.

One clarification with what you said, is that with the AMT ISO exercise is that you're not _actually_ taxed on both the exercise and the sell. What's actually going on is that you're prepaying your taxes when you sell the stock. When you sell the shares, you'll only have to pay the taxes (either regular income or capital gains) based on the difference of the fair market value of the stock when exercised and when sold. If it went up, and you sold in less than year from exercise or less than 2 years from ISO grant, then it's regular income, otherwise it's capital gains. So you could actually get a tax refund when you sell. (Same is true if the market price actually declined between exercise and sell.)

The argument is that when you exercise, you received something of value for less than market and so you made money, but in reality you actually haven't realized any gains, and actually are at cash loss. I understand the argument, but I don't agree with it, because you did not actually realize any gain.

FWIW, San Jose's congresswoman Zoe Lofgren has repeatedly tried to fix the AMT and ISO taxation, but hasn't had much success.[0]

Where I disagree with you is thinking that private companies are going to "figure out a way to make this work" in a way that's beneficial for workers. I'm sorry, but I've _never_ seen high finance work out for workers. It's basically a play for the financially desperate. It's no better than selling you shares on sharespost or something. If it's illiquid market, you're never going to get full value, and you know damn well those that are buying are going to expect a few multiples in gain. They can just wait a bit longer. Workers on the other hand, are busy trying to scrape together a down payment on a $2,000,000 shack in the valley.

[0] [https://lofgren.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentI...](https://lofgren.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=365511)

<comment><USER7> The notion of "realizing" seems like nonsense to me. You get given a piece of paper worth $100, you should get taxed for $100. Whether that piece of paper is a federal reserve note or a stock certificate should be an irrelevance, no?

<comment><USER19> Can you buy anything with that piece of paper?

Can you sell it?

If not, it's not really "worth" $100. That's the difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Palantir's official reason of "improving employee moral" doesn't seem to really mesh with the conditions they are imposing on the buy-back:

> [...] employees who sell their shares agree agree that they will not compete > with Palantir for 12 months or solicit any Palantir employees during that > time [...] [and] agree to a nondisclosure arrangement that forbids them from > even talking about the repurchase and waive any claims they might have > against the company.

The nyt put forwards a reasonable idea that this is a mechanism to increase their perceived value, and I'm inclined to agree.

EDIT: the buzzfeed article [1] paints an even worse picture:

> If they [employees] get any inquiries about Palantir from reporters, the > contract says, they must immediately notify Palantir and then email the > company a copy of the inquiry within three business days.

[1]: [https://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/palantir-seeks-to- muzz...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/palantir-seeks-to-muzzle- former-employees)

<comment><USER21> If Palantir is a CA business entity (I didn't check, maybe it's a DE corp), its noncompete should be per se invalid (= automatically void) in CA. There are only a few circumstances in which noncompetition agreements are valid in CA, and this doesn't seem to be one of them. See section 2.1.2 in:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non- compete_clause#Exceptions_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non- compete_clause#Exceptions_-_valid_non-compete_agreements_in_California)

Palantir's attorneys surely can't have missed this, but I don't see an alternative.

<comment><USER6> This is one of the exceptions to noncompetes in California - when you sell your interest in a company. They are a Delaware corp. They have tons of employees outside of California (New York?).

<comment><USER22> Actually, I think you have to be selling the whole business - but from my comment above - it's not part of the employment agreement, so ... it's _possibly_ enforceable. Maybe not, but I wouldn't count on it either way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > It also makes them agree to a nondisclosure arrangement that forbids them > from even talking about the repurchase and waive any claims they might have > against the company. And the offer extends to some but not all former > employees.

That smells funny and oddly specific.

<comment><USER20> Indeed. I'd be curious which employees (if any) were included, and why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is called a PLP (Private Liquidity Plan). The comments here are kind of vaguely negative but it's actually not a bad deal for employees. The main problem is that most pre-IPO companies can't afford it. It uses up capital that would otherwise go into operations.[1]

Where it _may_ make sense is in so-called "private IPOs", i.e. those 9 or 10 digit dollar rounds. There's enough money there to hand out. In olden days, companies would have been public by then and employees would have had liquidity. Planatir raised $880M last year so, yeah, they can afford it.[2]

[1] [http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/30/need-to-cash-out-a-bit- pre...](http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/30/need-to-cash-out-a-bit-pre-ipo- consider-a-private-liquidity-program/)

[2] [https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/23/palantir-has- raised-880-mi...](https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/23/palantir-has- raised-880-million-at-a-20-billion-valuation/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Wouldnt it be nice to have coworkers (ish, they both have positions at Berkeley) who can write willfully ignorant reinterpretations of your terrible ideas in the Times?

Edit: I don't know for a fact that they are coworkers in a meaningful sense, of course a university is a large place, but I would expect a professor of law to have better reading comprehension than was on display here.

</comment><comment><USER26> I could easily see the situation evolving that "unicorns" would either have to provide liquidity for options or pay over market rates. An engineer at FB or Google that getting paid in Restricted Stock units in addition to their salary sees it as "extra pay" and an employee who sees a company that will never let them sell options as not a smart place to work.

It does open up some creative financing though. Imagine a "common only" startup, one where every share bought by investors or earned as an option had the same rights and liquidation preference. Or my favorite[1] starting a company with a fixed 5 billion shares all at a par value of $1 each. Then only pay your employee in shares, only get investments by selling shares to investors.

[1] I call it a favorite since we joked at a party once that if you did this, and convinced a friend to buy a hundred shares for $100 you could call yourself a self made billionaire! And be completely truthful.

</comment><comment><USER27> > Mr. Kupor notes that extending the exercise time for former employees makes > their options more valuable at the expense of employees and investors. (It > does so because former employees have a longer time to exercise their > options and dilute the other shareholders.)

This is simply a falsehood. Exercises of options of do not dilute shareholders -- new issuances do. Former employees do not issue new shares.

<comment><USER6> It's not an outright falsehood. He's referring to the (correct, but also insidious) fact that compared to a 90-day exercise window, more people will end up exercising under a more extended window - and this will dilute. In other words, extended windows reduce the number of options returned to the pool, and are thus slightly dilutive.

<comment><USER28> So the dilution does not come from the exercise period; it comes from rank and file employees being unable to raise the required capital to exercise. So imagine if Kupor had said "We should not be paying employees any salaries; that puts cash in their pockets which enables them to exercise their options when they vest which leads to dilution for every investor" \- that would have been an obviously ridiculous position. So is the statement OP is commenting on.

On a side note, you have been defending Kupor in the other thread too with such nitpicks. Why?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This sounds like a move made out of desperation, not benevolence. Word on the street is that all is not well at Palantir.

</comment><comment><USER30> My hunch is that the majority of revenue was forward looking with foreign governments and large clients. This revenue was used as the basis for raising at extremely high valuations. Investor diligence was weak and the exact terms of these contracts was likely not understood in detail. When shit hit the fan with the software/consulting services and the value was not realized (and or budgets were cut, key champions retired etc.) ... contracts got cancelled. When contracts got cancelled the house of cards started to fall. The issue with huge contracts is that it's very easy to lose them. This is why a broad revenue base is crucial.

Now they know that hundreds of employees are going to go blow the whistle so they have to pay them off with buybacks while they figure out an exit strategy.

My 2 cents.

</comment><comment><USER31> What nobody talks about is the very good reason why employers give only 90 days after leaving a company to exercise options is that there is also a tax liability to the company for an employee exercising an option. Usually employer has to pay employment tax, now if you have a lot of options still unexercised from former employees and your stock has appreciated a lot the company can be on the hook for a lot of taxes. The company prefers only being on the hook for current employees.

The true solution is to give stock options that can be exercised early as long as the value of the stock is very low such that an employee's hiring bonus after tax could cover the cost. There is no tax owed by the employee since he purchased shares with no gain and then you vest outright stock. Once the stock value goes up it would be best to grant RSUs of convertible notes that convert into stock.

<comment><USER32> I'm pretty sure you are wrong about having to pay taxes if their are ex- employees with unexercised options.

Citation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I can't find the source so this is from memory; but Karp or Theil said they wouldn't ever go public and essentially can't because they are essentially a DoD contractor. While other companies notably do similar things and other contractors are public, Palantir provides a unique platform to some extent and their customer base, much of their technology and operations are secret.

It is known they will not likely go public as it would be detrimental to their business and in-Q-tel (cia vc arm) is a major shareholder. While Silicon Valley does need to rethink some of the ways they compensate employees; especially at late stage private ones, I would not consider Palantir indiicative of a typical SV unicorn

<comment><USER11> All is not friendly in the shire, remember this post from a few years ago?

[https://www.quora.com/When-will-Palantir-go- public](https://www.quora.com/When-will-Palantir-go-public)

<comment><USER33> In his response on quora he said he:

* left palantir in 09

* is a major shareholder

* left after he "had successfully replaced myself in both parts of the company we'd created and had fully vested".

So I am not going to speculate whether he was pushed out, but it sounds like he has much less latitude for steering the company. Especially when you consider the power of the other founders and the initial VC capital that was put in. So this (claims of palantir going public) are what I would expect a major shareholder without control of the company to say. It is effectively the only way to put pressure on them.

Even if this is wildly incorrect, and it quite possibly is, that comment was made several years after he had little more than an advisory role at palantir.

[https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Joe-Lonsdale-leave- Palantir](https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Joe-Lonsdale-leave-Palantir)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> >Palantir's repurchase offer

Yes, it's an offer. I don't see why everyone is so up-in-arms over an offer. People can reject offers just like they can make them. Other similar offers include employment offers. I'm going to comment more generally on this issue between founder and employee deals:

Here's what I think. HN is mostly of the employee class and so there's a politicized negative sentiment about companies not leaning the way of the employees.

Or maybe people think these offers and deals are bad for both the company founders and the employees. So here is my proposition if you believe that. Start your own company and enact whichever agreements you think are best. Do what Palantir does, or what YC advises, or whatever you make up. Give a 20 year exercise period if you want. Your call.

But you have to actually found a company.

I find it hard to believe in a moral "good and bad" on this issue. We're just talking about deals and contracts between people. And if people act with agency with regards to accepting and declining offers, and inventive individuals can come up with new systems and agreements that work better for everyone, then it will be fine. A moral bad would be something like Google and Apple and Facebook colluding behind closed doors to keep engineer pay below a certain threshold.

For the employees who will have to negotiate: you can't get a deal that's good for you if you aren't prepared to walk.

</comment><comment><USER35> How does the non compete and soliciting work for ex-employees. Is it 12 month after they left (likely void/expired for some already) or 12 month after signing in which case some ex-employees probably can't even sign this.

Either way I'm very skeptical of anything involving NDAs or non competes. I can understand a non poaching clause (but am also opposed to that on ideological grounds). If I could afford it I wouldn't sign anything that has NDAs or non disclosure.

I also doubt that many of the ex-employees need liquidity as they are likely to hold well paying jobs. I suppose some could need it but those are probably exactly the people least likely to compete with Palantir.

</comment><comment><USER36> Exercising options in a non-public company should not be taxed or valued in any way until the stock can be sold in a public market or to a purchasing entity. Of course what are the odds Congress would ever do that? Nil.

<comment><USER37> Can't this be mitigated to a large degree by setting the value per share to an tiny fraction of a dollar? Sure, you'll have a tax to pay when the shares are granted, but it should be reasonable.

I could get behind the scheme you commented with, but I'm unsure of generally why we have the system we currently do, so I would want to understand the rationale for the status quo.

<comment><USER38> It probably has something to do with preventing creative ways of liquidating illiquid assets, such as borrowing against the assets and promptly defaulting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> There is an easier solution. Go public. I've gotten options in a private company, RSUs in a private company that got acquired, options in a public company, and RSUs in a public company.

The only thing that I would count on an offer in the future are RSUs in a public company.

</comment><comment><USER40> Peter Thiel is a cofounder of Palantir. He is also on the board of directors of Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER41> This puts them closer for an IPO for sure, buying stock today!

</comment><comment><USER42> Does anybody think that this puts them closer to an IPO?

</comment><comment><USER43> Just pay people more.

</comment><comment><USER44> They should still get props for the rate at which they were able to recruit from Stanf/MIT/Princeton etc.

<comment><USER45> Why should they "get props" for duping graduates into wasting time joining their flailing business? That sounds like a trick, not a benefit.

<comment><USER46> Yeah, CMU grad here. My impression of Palantir is that they hire the top 1% of developers and pay them what a 50 percentile developer would make.

If you ever get a palantir job offer, you'd be better off just forwarding it to Uber, or Google or FB, and waiting for them to give you a 50% increased counteroffer on the spot.

<comment><USER47> Curious what your estimate of a 50th and a 99th percentile developer salary is for a new grad? And do you mean a 50th percentile CMU grad, or a 50th percentile CMU grad developer, or just overall?

<comment><USER46> Perhaps I exaggerate with the 99 percentile number, but the people I know who work at a top(high paying) company like Uber or Jane Street will get something like 150k easy (and maybe a signing bonus), and Palantir is more middle of the road with 100k base salary or less, and stock options of dubious value.

<comment><USER48> Are you saying 150k salaries for new grads or total comp?

ASAIK, Goog/Uber/FB starting salaries are closer to 110k base with $40-50k RSUs vesting per year (refreshes each year), performance bonus 10-15% salary and sometimes a generous signing bonus.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bill Gates sides with FBI on demand for Apple backdoor to shooter's iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/bill-gates-sides-with-fbi-on-demand-for-backdoor-to-shooters-iphone-massacre-san-bernardino/ <comment><USER2> I can't help but think this clearly demarks the largest difference between apple and microsoft. MS will sell your security and privacy and rights for some temporary safety.</comment>


The Ratio of Workers to Retirees Is Plunging Across Developed Economies - <AUTHOR> http://thesoundingline.com/there-are-now-barely-two-workers-per-senior-in-most-developed-economies/ <comment><USER2> The talk was that this was part of the reason that Merkel was so open in taking in so many refugees back in 2015, and have a 'open door' policy. It was both a 'calculated economic decision', and a humanitarian one.

Unfortunately it backfired as it encouraged too many economic immigrants to come with boats and undertake dangerous trips risking their lives, only to eventually get turned down in their lengthy asylum process. And she is risking her position/government as her people got fed up on the influx. It also is risking the EU stability itself, with Austria and Italy taking a hard right and turning into immigrant hostile countries, and helping putting eurosceptic parties in power.

<comment><USER3> The problem is that you can't have a liesure class of healthcare consuming old people without an underclass of young working age people toiling for high taxes. Eventually you have an even worse social issue. Further, people probably don't realize they are voting to close the border to their sole source of future dependency. A vicious cycle. The other problem is there is a huge gap in the quality of immigrants, some stay dependent where others drive the economy like no native can. Complicated issue all around.

<comment><USER4> There is always the option of reversing the decline of fertility in Western countries.

<comment><USER5> Fertility is declining globally it's not a western thing. The only way to realistically improve fertility rates is to recess women's rights back to the 1950s.

Instead we should focus on improving quality of life for all through more efficient and automated production methods. The end goal is to increase productivity per hour such that we don't need as many young people to support the older population.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> And the ratio of workers to worker productivity increases every year, so it all balances out.

In the US I pay inordinate taxes and do not get the health, education etc. that I would in Europe. Instead I am paying for hundreds of US military bases all over the world, the $1.5 trillion F35 piece of junk etc. The one thing I will get, money in retirement, they are trying to take away from me.

<comment><USER7> The productivity numbers the past few years are not that great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As the birth control pill became available around the 1960-1970 around the developed world, birth rates plumeted. A lot of countries took inspiration from 19th century Germany's social security system and have the current workers pay pensions for the current retirees, which predictably leads a big problem 60-70 years after any big decrease in birth rate.

It's a disaster we have seen coming for decades, with limited success at mitigating it. Germany for example is (pretty late into the problem) trying to switch over to a system where everyone saves for his own pension (which is robost against any population changes), without looking like they mistreat the generation unfairly that has to pay both the current retiree's pension and their own. Getting more migrants to smooth things over is also a valid strategy, as long as integration works out.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is the result of western economic policy which is designed to promote corporate growth and monopolies (along with the income and wealth inequality which is associated with it) - It causes people to concentrate in major urban centers where all the corporate HQs are located; this causes rents to go up, which means that people have less disposable income and can't afford to have children... Fewer children translates to fewer workers to support an ageing population - This creates an incentive for the older generation take in immigrants to fill gaps in the workforce.

</comment><comment><USER10> Having one generation depend on the taxes collected from another is a bad idea.

I think the forced savings system Singapore has makes a lot more sense.

<comment><USER11> Money isn't intrinsically valuable. Forcing people to save for retirement doesn't bother me one way or the other, but, how can I put this…

Imagine a family living alone on an island. They use gold coins for trade amongst themselves. Parents get old, kids look after them. Those kids decide not to reproduce (reasons are different between analogy and reality, effect is similar). When the kids get old themselves, no amount of coin changes the fact nobody's doing any work, catching fish or whatever.

If we can automate all the work, great, we can all retire. If not, we need some balance between working and reproduction that varies depending on the rate of reproduction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if longevity will start falling soon, Gen-X don't seem to have very healthy lifestyles.

<comment><USER13> But it's not like Boomers in the 1970s and early 80s exactly treated their bodies like temples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The surge in entitlement spending could be considered a form of basic income. Proponents of basic income need to take into account that spending is already very high.

<comment><USER11> That's already given as one of the arguments in favour of it being affordable.

<comment><USER14> can you elaborate how that would work

<comment><USER11> Instead of _n_ different benefits schemes, of which pensions are just the most socially accepted, take all that money plus all they money used to decide who should have that money and just give it to everybody equally no questions asked.

That's basically what people tell me when trying to justify it. I don't know if it adds up or not or if it does but only in one country. My opinions on it at this point are still just a complicated tree that branches on facts I don't know.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Soros: Trump has US 'set on a course towards nuclear war' - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/25/soros-trump-has-us-set-on-a-course-towards-nuclear-war.html <comment><USER2> That's maybe an inverted compliment?

It would be worse if the title read "Soros approves of President Trump".

That would be twice as bad.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>--

P.S. your profile quote is pretty thought provoking...

"If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die." Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.

<comment><USER3> It's a dumb quote. People who don't have something mentally or physically to work on till they die loose their minds and bodies in a slow painful process. You can have all the money in the world, but if you have nothing to work on when you wake up in the morning, you might as well be a potted plant.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's why we invented hobbies...</comment></comment></comment>


Fewer people go to college than you think - <AUTHOR> http://iainmcqueen.posterous.com/a-lot-fewer-people-go-to-college-than-you-thi

<comment><USER2> Also there is a big difference between GOING to college and GRADUATING from college. A ton of people drop out during their first or second years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I glossed over writing the title and it's misleading. I meant to refer to the number of people who obtain bachelor's degrees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> With certain "provable" professions, like programming, where it is possible to prove talent/fit directly -- as opposed to by proxy with a college degree or past experience -- do you see college becoming less relevant as online education and online hiring improves?

<comment><USER4> I have been told - first by the CEO of a retail chain [1] - that 'a college degree' isn't so much for talent, or fit, as a proof that the applicant can stick with something for a few years.

He proved his point by hiring me [2] for a job. At that point in my life I had no degree, but I had just spent eight years in the Marines, and had done everything from programming computers (badly) to micro PC repair and LAN administration.

[1] Who was, improbably, interviewing me for a job. Long story.

[2] Sort of. He called me back said he _would_ have hired me but the company had just gone into Chapter 11.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> People commonly misinterpret this stat to mean that only 27.5% of current high school students will go to college. That's completely wrong - it's just that few of the old people in this country went to college.

These days, about 68% of high school graduates end up in college (different stat than the percent that graduate)... So the "misconception" that most people go to college after high school is actually completely correct. Source: <http://www.bls.gov/news.release/hsgec.nr0.htm>

<comment><USER6> No, the original link is correct -- about 27% of people of 25 have a college degree of BA or higher. If you extend the age (say to 30 or 35), you don't see much difference.

"go to [some] college" (68%) and "graduate from college by age 25" (27%) are COMPLETELY different statistics. Lots and lots of working class people graduate with decent grades, go to the local state college, don't fit in (or party too much), and drop out.

And going to 3.5 years of college and dropping out versus a BA makes a HUGE difference in career outcomes later -- it is a discontinuous jump.

<comment><USER7> What's the source for your number?

The original article is about all people "25 and older", not "25".

The census data he's quoting is "Bachelor's degree or higher, pct of persons age 25+, 2005-2009":

<http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html></comment></comment></comment>


The New American Dream: My Life as a Minority Startup Owner - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/04/the-new-american-dream-my-life-as-a-minority-startup-owner/ <comment><USER2> I thought it was going to be about having a minority stake in a startup, like investing 10k when a couple of buddies have an idea for a product</comment>


Facebook QR Codes Are Part Of Their Location Plans - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/19/facebook-qr-codes-location/

<comment><USER2> Am I the only one sus on the testing story they've spun as and explanation the QR codes suddenly appearing then disappearing? Smells more like someone deployed something they shouldn't have and a build-master at Facebook has been briskly spanked and their root passwords taken away.</comment>


Show HN: CosmicOS, a next-gen Contact message - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/paulfitz/cosmicos <comment><USER2> I have no idea what I just read but I feel like I've seen the future and it is bleak</comment>


Ask HN: What are some good FPS games that can run on a MBP? - <AUTHOR> I used to play Warsaw and Quake Live a lot, but I recently went back to play Quake Live and saw that it unfortunately no longer runs in the browser, and only supports Windows. And Warsaw's user base seems to have dwindled down--which really sucks. I couldn't find a game.
I tried to run Fortnite recently, but it doesn't seem to be able to hit 60 FPS even on low settings. (I have a 2016 MacBook Pro.)
Any good FPS games that run 60 FPS on a MBP? <comment><USER2> Intel graphics? I dunno is uh, red eclipse on Mac?

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct. Red Eclipse looks cool. Seems to support macOS, so I'll check it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> cs:go?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice, I completely forgot about CS. Used to play that too. I'll check it out.</comment></comment>


Dropbox to Establish International Office in Dublin - <AUTHOR> http://www.idaireland.com/news-media/press-releases/dropbox-to-establish-inte/index.xml

<comment><USER2> With the UK being the biggest userbase in the EU for Dropbox its a shame they've decided to open up in Dublin, as my accountant would say its a good "tax optimisation" strategy.

Sure, hate the game not the player, but they could have scored some major plus points on the day Public Accounts Committee in the UK have poured scorn on Google, Amazon and Starbucks:

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20559791>

<comment><USER3> I continue to have difficulty understanding the gnashing of teeth around various "tax minimization" strategies, e.g. being "immoral" and all that.

Setting aside those companies that deal in 'hard goods' (e.g. Amazon-the- store, Starbucks, etc), could someone explain the rationale of taxation w.r.t. corporate domicile?

Say I offer a software-based service in the U.S. (i.e. all the servers, billing, admin, dev, etc are done there), and by dint of luck/happenstance, a majority of the userbase ends up being in the EU. I (or my ISP) or my customers (or their ISP) are paying for the pipe between us (which is presumably taxed however the relevant localities have chosen); beyond that, I am not benefiting from any government services in the EU.

Should I nevertheless pay taxes in the EU (perhaps proportionately to each member nation based on the mix of nationalities of my userbase)? When I set up a European office, shall I be shamed into setting up HQ in whatever country houses the majority of my customers that year? What happens when that mix changes such that the majority of my customers are in a different nation?

All of this sounds absurd, but it sounds like the standard (or something similar to it) being applied to Dropbox in this case.

<comment><USER4> I think the argument is that if you're making a profit off a country's citizens, you should also be paying taxes to that country's government, otherwise there'll be a large net flux of money out of that country (e.g. with Amazon, Starbucks in the UK).

Let me put it another way, you say that:

>beyond that, I am not benefiting from any government services in the EU.

but you are benefiting from the government. Without a stable and moderately successful government, your customers wouldn't be in a position to be able to pay for your services. And that's exactly why most of your customers could, conceivably, come from the EU, but are unlikely to come from a developing country.

I'm not saying I agree with this; I don't know enough about how this sort of taxation affects the system as a whole, but I believe that's the logic.

<comment><USER5> The rule generally applied, which I think is a sensible one, is that you pay tax in a country on profits derived from it IF you have a permanent place of establishment there (branch office, sales office, retail outlets etc). This means a company that has no physical presence in a country but sells products digitally there has no taxes due (except sales tax/VAT in the EU in some cases if over a certain threshold).

The issue in the case of Amazon, Starbucks et all in the UK right now is that these companies DO have a local permanent establishment, but manage to minimize their corporate tax through a mechanism called "transfer pricing", whereby they pay their sister branches in lower tax jurisdictions license fees etc for using brand, IP, software systems etc, thus increasing their tax deductible expenses in the high tax jurisdiction (UK).

What's useful to note is that none of this would be possible without double taxation agreements and the EU, both which successive UK govts and tax authorities have painstakingly and explicitly negotiated and agreed to. If there are no double taxation treaties, taxes for cross-border payments would in fact be quite punitive (withholding taxes etc).

It seems to me the UK govt thought they would benefit from these agreements when they where originally negotiated, but it has not turned out to be the case. The whole "moral outrage" is just the government passing the buck on a ball they themselves dropped.

As a side note, I don't believe moral outrage is conducive to the rule of law. These multinationals follow the letter of the law and have no further obligations. If the government thinks otherwise, they should renegotiate their positions and stop pointing fingers at others for a ball they dropped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone dismissing[1] this as purely a tax-play[2] doesn't do service to the thriving, vibrant and diversive tech community that Dublin has. Anyone based here for even a few weeks would know that.

Dublin's #1 strength over places like London and Berlin is it's geographic size, which makes meetups accessible, leaders and role models available, and creates a friendly and familiar feel, where we all fee like we are part of something bigger than the startups that are here.

Side note: To anyone here on HN visiting Dublin in the future, feel free to connect with us, you'd be very welcome -- @ me on Twitter... @EamonLeonard

[1] [http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/12/03/dropbox- announces-f...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/12/03/dropbox-announces- first-international-office-in-ireland-to-offer-increased-support-more- languages/)

[2] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4864190>

<comment><USER7> Picking an EEC country is a good idea because (Other things aside from the tax...):-

Talent pool. Higher unemployment at the current time.

It's also part of the Euro so a good base (rather than the UK) for collecting payments from the Eurozone countries.

Native English speakers.

Easy for other European citizens to go work there (no visa issues).

Irish passport holders can enter the Green Card Lottery (you can't with just a UK passport) so it could make relocation to the US easier for some.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I thought UK had a richer talent pool, for development positions and such. I really wonder if they chose Ireland to evade tax.

<comment><USER9> I don't see how establishing your company in a country with a lower tax rate as opposed to some other country can be considered as tax "evasion".

<comment><USER7> It's not, it's "tax avoidance" which is entirely legal but various Governments (UK and France in particular) and starting to get upset about.

"Tax evasion" is not paying tax that you must pay. "Tax avoidance" is finding ways to not be liable for the tax in the first place.

<comment><USER10> It's not tax avoidance either. It would only be tax avoidance if they moved from one EU country to another one that had a lower corporate tax rate. This is their first European office - it makes perfect sense to choose the location that brings the greatest benefits to the company.

<comment><USER11> Quite so. Richard Murphy put together a set of definitions that might be of interest: [http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2010/07/07/tax- avoidance-...](http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2010/07/07/tax-avoidance- evasion-compliance-and-planning/)

> Tax avoidance is seeking to minimise a tax bill without deliberate deception > (which would be tax evasion) but contrary to the spirit of the law. It > therefore involves the exploitation of loopholes and gaps in tax and other > legislation in ways not anticipated by the law. Those loopholes may be in > domestic tax law alone, but they may also be between domestic tax law and > company law or between domestic tax law and accounting regulations, for > example. The process can also seek to exploit gaps that exist between > domestic tax law and the law of other countries when undertaking > international transactions.

(I'm a former tax accountant, at KPMG - these definitions are uncontroversial AFAIK)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone know what do they refer with "Iberian language"? <https://www.dropbox.com/position?jvi=o92YWfwP,Job>

I mean, as they are referring before to Spanish, I guess it is Portuguese, maybe?

Because if they refer to Old Iberian (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_language>), it is going to be difficult to find anyone :-D

<comment><USER13> I guess they mean a language spoken on Ibearian Peninsula – Spanish and Portugese as major ones and Catalan, Basque, Galician as regional ones in Spain. No idea about Portugal's local languages.

<comment><USER12> I don't think so, I think is just errata ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> From 5 hours ago - <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4864190>

</comment><comment><USER15> LOL.</comment>


Top 20 Motivation Hacks - <AUTHOR> http://zenhabits.net/top-20-motivation-hacks-overview/ <comment><USER2> I agree with 19 of these motivation hacks, but I've found that #2 doesn't work for me. (#2: Make a big public commitment.)

Derek Silvers explains how this technique can backfire at <http://sivers.org/zipit> and in his TED Talk at <http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/eng//id/947>

In his words, "Announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you're less motivated to do the hard work needed."

Maybe announcing goals works for some people, but for me it definitely has the opposite effect. When I keep my goals private, I work to achieve them for my own sake. But when I announce my goals I feel like I'm working toward them to maintain the accolades from friends... accolades they gave me six months back when I merely announced that I'd be running that Marathon.

<comment><USER3> Similarly, Bob Shaw (science-fiction writer) says he likes to discuss story ideas with people - but he discovered that if he has a good story idea, and he _tells it to someone_ , it satisfies some of the story-telling energy, and he has less motivation to actually write it. I'm not sure if that has the same root as ego satisfaction (is "story-energy" having something great that _you_ thought of? maybe); but it contributes to the same result.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Top" by what measure? Has it been measured?

Some might even be harmful, for example I remember a study saying public commitment actually reduces probability of finishing. (It wasn't called public commitment in that study, but basically talking about what you want to do before doing it. Just talking about it seems to already satisfy some goals).

</comment><comment><USER5> Can we stop calling things hacks? You're either motivated or you aren't, and if there isn't enough motivation day after day, perhaps it's a sign that you're in the wrong place.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps "hack" isn't the right word but there are techniques or tricks that will result in higher productivity.

One technique I use is to think about how I would tackle a task if I were to do it. So you start to break it down, think about the first step, and what would follow. Pretty soon what was an really objectionable undertaking seems achievable and I launch into it.

<comment><USER7> >> >> but there are techniques or tricks that will result in higher productivity.

Yes, there are, but what nhangen is saying is very important - what if someone is in a totally wrong place (for himself), but tricked himself to be motivated to work on something which ultimately doesn't bring him happiness or fulfillment?

If you have to "#11: Reward yourself. Often.", isn't it an indicator that the intrinsic reward is lacking in the activity? Then why trick oneself to spend time on it?

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I take the point. I wouldn't like to lead a work life where my only motivation comes from artificial rewards or motivational hacks. If there is no intrinsic motivation in the work then something fundamental has gone wrong, like career choice.

However, we are human, and the most suitable work for an individual is still work, parts will be more painful than others. It's these parts where there can be, let's call them "disciplines" that will help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A human behaviour I observed, that could be hacked:

You know how you tend to do all the things that you don't want to do (like dishwashing, cleaning your apt, laundry etc.) if you have to learn for an really really boring but difficult exam at university. At the point you have to do something that appears more worse you tend to say things like: "okay, I have to study, but I have to XY first - because it's important", but you would not do them if you didn't have to study..

Hack would be to use this system an always have some really pain-in-the-butt thing on your to-do list, then you're really glad to check off all the others first.

don't take this post too seriously, though.

<comment><USER9> "productive procrastination"

<comment><USER8> Thanks a lot!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So what has this guy achieved? Writing a popular blog is a solid achievement, but it's not an amazing one.

The reason I ask is so I know who to listen to.

Leo Babuta:

"Only let yourself do 50-75 percent of what you want to do."

Sebastian Marshall (<http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/about>):

"I track my time, set daily and weekly objectives, and succeed on them roughly 70% of the time. If I start getting into a groove where I'm succeeding at 100%, I up the difficulty until I'm back around 70%."

I'm inclined to listen to Sebastian because he seems smarter and more energetic, but it'd be nice if each one bragged about their achievements more so I could make a more informed decision.

<comment><USER11> Lee babuta "my story" page: <http://zenhabits.net/my-story/>

On the other hand , if you read sebastian's page, you get the impression of a guy that talks a lot("I've been working and training to be the most skilled strategist of our era."), and travels , but with out difficult achievements in his past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hmm, I appreciate this list, however Leo has also written about being "goal- free." <http://zenhabits.net/no-goal/> Seems a bit conflicting.

</comment><comment><USER13> There is only only one motivation, ever. Actual desire.

In short, these articles exist because people are trying to rationalise their way past the cognitive dissonance of wanting to want things, without being willing to actually change themselves.

Decision making is fundamentally a process of "I want, there is no greater want, I can, so I will". If you're not getting to do what you want, it's simply that you have a greater want. Sometimes that's just a want to not actually exert effort.

tl;dr - you will not change what you do without changing what you are.

<comment><USER14> Commitment equals action. If you are not _doing_ something then you are not committed to it. If you want to do something, but you aren't doing it, _find out what is blocking your commitment to it_.

</comment></comment><comment> dan-k I find it interesting how he contrasts being disciplined with keeping up motivation and focus. I think the truth is actually the polar opposite of this; maintaining motivation and focus is most of what constitutes "discipline." In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if most "disciplined" people you know use at least a couple of these techniques.

Perhaps the key to this is that the techniques trick people into being disciplined without realizing it, because otherwise it feels like a chore.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice validating read. All of the points quoted in this are discussed in detail in Richard Wiseman's "59 Seconds" book. He references scientific studies associated with all of these points.

According to that book #5 is a big no no. Wiseman claims (and shows with references) that conducted studies suggest that visualisation actually has adverse affects on a person's ability to actually achieve a goal.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have played about with different ideas around motivation for a long time. I also tried to develop my own web apps to remind me of where I wanted to go. When I have time I keep adding to this <http://www.mapourlives.com>. A freebie sign up for anyone.

</comment><comment><USER17> I actually like the "hold yourself back" idea. The "tortoise and the hare" comes to mind here.

<comment><USER14> A better way of putting it would be "Pace yourself".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ironically, I was not motivated enough to read through this entire article.

<comment><USER19> I was only motivated enough to read the headlines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> So #1 is basically "be delusional". Got it.</comment>


Linguistic humor, Headlines (2003) - <AUTHOR> https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/headlines.html <comment><USER2> "Headless Body in Topless Bar" seems to deserve mention somewhere on that page.</comment>


Punishment in 19th Century China (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.harvard.edu/preserving/2014/07/01/punishment-in-19th-century-china/ <comment><USER2> I'm a little surprised this doesn't mention the death by a thousand cuts (lingchi), which in 19th century China was just not a metaphor for poor change management in software development.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Subordinates of government are examined at the end of each year, and if they are found not to have improved, they receive forty blows." being carried over to year end performance reviews at many organizations. Doesn't look like much has changed.</comment>


Why OCaml GADTs matter for performance - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.janestreet.com/why-gadts-matter-for-performance/ <comment><USER2> I'm still not quite sure what GADTs are (after skimming the WP article, reading this article, and skimming the code in it) but very surprisingly to me, it looks like OCaml's GADT implementation tackles a lot of the memory fragmentation problems that come with object-graph-heap memory-model languages like Lisp, Python, Java, previously OCaml, JavaScript, and so on, in exchange for a little more type declaration overhead. (Although, in my small experience, debugging OCaml type errors usually involves adding some redundant type declarations anyway.)

This is really interesting and I hope I understand it someday soon!

<comment><USER3> Generalized Algebraic Data Types, GADTs, are algebraic data types which include both (a) existential types and (b) type equalities. The combination allows for a certain kind of interaction between the specific kind of value within a type and the type itself.

For instance, we might have a little expression language using normal ADTs [0]

        type exp =
          | Int  of int               -- integer constants
          | Bool of bool              -- bool constants
          | Add  of exp * exp         -- addition
          | Neg  of exp               -- negation
          | Ifte of exp * exp * exp   -- if then else
          | Lte  of exp * exp         -- less than or equal to

but there's no particular guarantee that a value of `exp` is well-typed. For instance, the following is a valid value of `exp`

        let x : exp = Add (Int 3, Bool true)

GADTs allow us to fix this situation by reflecting the type of the expression value into the type of the expression. Here's some syntax

        type _ exp =
          | Int  : int  -> int exp
          | Bool : bool -> bool exp
          | Add  : int  exp * int exp -> int exp
          | Neg  : int  exp * int exp
          | Ifte : bool exp * 'a  exp * 'a exp -> 'a exp
          | Lte  : int  exp * int exp -> bool exp

The way to read this syntax is to see it as giving the "type" of each constructor. Not only do we now parameterize the `exp` type with an index type corresponding to the type of the value this expression denotes, we also create very non-trivial type equations like

        Ifte : bool exp -> 'a exp -> 'a exp -> 'a exp

and

        Lte : int exp -> int exp -> bool exp

The upshot is that while the type of an interpreter for the first exp would have to look like

        type value = VInt of int | VBool of bool

        val interpret : exp -> value option

the type of the second `exp` is so constrained as to eliminate (a) the need for the separate `value` type and (b) the possibility of failure:

        val interpret : 'a exp -> 'a

        let interpret = function
          | Int i          -> i
          | Bool b         -> b
          | Add (i1, i2)   -> interpret i1 + interpret i2
          | Neg i          -> - (interpret i)
          | Ifte (c, t, e) -> if interpret c then interpret t else interpret e
          | Lte (i1, i2)   -> interpret i1 <= interpret i2

Such a construction is known to be type-error free because GADTs allow us to ensure that type constructors follow certain type equations and it's possible to write such a clean evaluator because GADTs keep around enough type information so that the compiler can "trust" them.

Finally, the short answer of how they work is something like they interpret a constructor like

        Ifte : bool exp * 'a exp * 'a exp -> 'a exp

as one with some existential types

        Ifte :    ...    | 'x exp * 'a exp * 'a exp 'a ex

and some type equalities

        Ifte : 'x == int |              ...

then when typechecking it just has to collect all the unique new type variables and solve the system of equalities which arises.

[0] Yeah, the author pooh poohs at examples like this, but I think they're really particularly clear.

<comment><USER4> I've come to think that these toy interpreter examples are a bit questionable unless they contain a variadic structure like an arbitrary tuple - they give the impression that programming with GADTs is simpler than it really is.

<comment><USER5> Problem with toy AST examples is they're great if you're doing something like that, but don't give much motivation if you're not. (Unless you starting seeing all programming as AST manipulation, which can be an interesting viewpoint.)

Here's an example of another way to use GADTs. [http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/making_propellor_safer_with_GAD...](http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/making_propellor_safer_with_GADTs_and_type_families/)

More important that using GADTs for one thing or another is to start looking at the type checker as something you use to assist you in writing the kind of code you want to write, and avoiding the kind of code you want to avoid. GADTs are one amoung many useful tools in the modern toolbox for that.

<comment><USER2> That's a really fascinating post! Thank you! I'm still not sure I understand GADTs (in part, here, because I know very little Haskell indeed) but this helps.

Do GADTs allow Turing-complete computation at compile time, like C++ templates? Are there limits to what kind of correctness properties you can use them to get compile-time machine-checked proofs of?

<comment><USER6> GADTs by themselves do not allow arbitrary computation[1]. But Haskell also allows you to write functions at the type-level ("type families" in the Haskell jargon), so you can directly write functions to compute types without any trickery, and the Propeller example uses this feature.

GADTs let you write down basically the same things that you could write as an inductive datatype in a dependent language like Coq and Agda. So (with some patience) you can make a function return a "proof" of anything that can be witnessed by a first-order inductive type, e.g. equations between expressions, list membership, proofs that a term in an object-language is welltyped, etc. The main limitation is that Haskell doesn't have any termination checking, so if you consider it as a dependently typed language there is no way to write a trustworthy proof that uses induction. Also its not very user-friendly, see [2] for some examples.

[1] Basically, GADTs are equivalent to having equations between types. If all the equations are written out in full, it is reasonably straightforward to check whether two types are provably equal. If you want to do type _inference_, i.e. figure out what equality assumptions a given function should make in order to become welltyped, then you run into various undecidable problems (e.g. "rigid E-unification"). My guess would be that if you wrote down a completely general typesystem featuring GADTs, then you would be able to encode arbitrary computations as type-inference problems, but the encoding would be very clumsy. The Haskell and Ocaml implementations deliberately don't try to be very general in the type inference, and instead try to pick a decidable subset, so the programmer has to add enough type annotations to guide it.

[2] [https://personal.cis.strath.ac.uk/conor.mcbride/pub/hasochis...](https://personal.cis.strath.ac.uk/conor.mcbride/pub/hasochism.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> GADTs are [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalized_algebraic_data_type](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalized_algebraic_data_type)

<comment><USER8> Upvoting, so obnoxious of the author of the post to not define them.

<comment><USER9> I can't tell if you are serious or not. OP goes through them by example.

Original type:

      type 'a t = | Array of 'a array
                  | Bytes of bytes

GADT'd (same functionality as before):

      type 'a t = | Array : 'a array -> 'a t
                  | Bytes : bytes -> 'a t

Now using power of GADT to add constraint:

      type 'a t = | Array : 'a array -> 'a t
                  | Bytes : bytes -> char t

Just jumping into it seems like a fine choice to make. Allows for a (narrow) introduction to GADTs without getting bogged down in their full complexity/limitations. Shows that it's useful before/without a theoretical discussion.

Still, I wouldn't have minded a little discussion introducing GADTs.

<comment><USER7> In the original version of the article (when I wrote my comment), the author hadn't defined them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It would have been interesting to get actual performance numbers with the article.

<comment><USER11> The specific performance aspect is, essentially, immaterial. The idea, in over-simple terms, is say you have Foo<T> but for say T=X there is a faster specialized way to implement Foo<X>, well you can do this in the type system of Ocaml via GADTs and still write generic type-safe code for Foo<T> and the compiler does the right thing when when it happens that T=X.(+)

So you get to have your cake and eat it too.

(+) without brittle, verbose, horrific re-factoring required to do similar things in simpler type systems.

<comment><USER2> Yes, having a faster specialized way to implement Foo<X> is great. But the reason it's great is "the specific performance aspect". If the cost of using the faster specialized way is, say, massive interpretive overhead, then it may not actually be faster, and then there's no reason to use it.

GADTs actually seem to go in the other direction, though — they seem to enable the compiler to prove _more_ at compile-time and thus generate code with _less_ run-time tag checking.

But some hard performance numbers would go a long way toward proving that.

<comment><USER10> Especially since GADTs don't do too well with type inference. My take on "premature optimization is the root of all evil" is that I will take any "cheap" premature optimization which doesn't impact readability, but I'd like to be sure there is an actual performance improvement first.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Advice for non-technical friends worried about malware - <AUTHOR>

With all of the recent main stream hacks, I have had a lot of family and friends asking for advice on how to avoid being "hacked". They are basically asking for advice on how to avoid being infected with malware or having their financial information stolen.
I am really not sure what to tell them. For technical users, it basically comes down to common sense. But there is no way to explain to a non technical computer user the difference between a well crafted website overlay, and a real adobe flash update, etc.
The most I can really give them is to always keep up to date with browser and operating system updates, and recommend a password manager to avoid reusing passwords.
Anyone else with more experience have better advice that can be given? <comment><USER2> Why not tell them to install something like MalwareBytes, that automatically scans their machine? A lot of what they are looking for is peace of mind. I usually give family and friends the basic tips (don't open attachments you aren't expecting, be careful of the "seedier" sites you travel to, and so on) while also having them install a scanner that can catch most of the things that they'll end up contracting.</comment>


Testing quantised inertia on the emdrive – M.E. McCulloch (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.03449 <comment><AUTHOR> >"It has been shown that truncated cone-shaped cavities with microwaves resonating within them move slightly towards their narrow ends (the emdrive).

Standard physics has no explanation for this and an error has not yet been found."</comment>


Quick DNA Scans Could Ensure Food Is Safe to Eat - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quick-dna-scans-could-ensure-food-is-safe-to-eat/

<comment><USER2> iPhone based fast PCR's devices are already in development and may be commercially available soon. www.biomeme.com</comment>


U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-selfdriving/u-s-house-unanimously-approves-sweeping-self-driving-car-measure-idUSKCN1BH2B2 <comment><USER2> > Advocates hope self-driving cars can help reduce U.S. road deaths, which > rose 7.7 percent in 2015, the highest annual jump since 1966.

This was a news story in itself [1]. It was attributed to increased driving, encouraged by economic factors such as higher employment and lower gas prices.

[1] [http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2016/02/18/467230965/...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2016/02/18/467230965/2015-traffic-fatalities-rose-by-largest-percent- in-50-years-safety-group-says)

<comment><USER3> > attributed to increased driving, encouraged by economic factors such as > higher employment and lower gas prices

Interesting - I always assumed that the increase in road deaths was at least largely due to increased cellphone usage, resulting in distracted drivers.

<comment><USER4> It's not to say that's not still the cause of many of them, just that with more people on the road more accidents can occur.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I make the argument that the majority of our interactions with law enforcement (for those of us who are otherwise generally well mannered) stem from some driving related instance. This is the true pathway for most of us to get tangled up in the [broken[ revolving door of the legal system. I am 100% all for self driving cars and look forward to owning one as soon as there are no controls for me to interact with at any time during travel. i.e. no steering wheel, no gas or brake pedals, nothing and therefore no reason to be pulled over. I want the car to be treated legally as an extension to my home; anything that I do / can do at home can also be done in the car. I want a cocktail? take it from the house into the car while it takes me to my destination.

<comment><USER6> That is to say, you want to limit your mobility to that which is directly and entirely under the control of legislated authority with no possibility of circumventing laws for one reason or another.

<comment><USER7> I have long been arguing among friends and family that in the future it should be ILLEGAL to manually operate your vehicle without a special license. That license, would require to obtain it, a much more vigorous examination and approval than we currently have at the DMV. So, for those determined to manually operate their vehicle, there would always be the means for them to do so. But it should be sufficiently difficult that the average joe doesn't pursue it, given the utility of the self driving car.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Question: Does this undermine California's safety standards for self-driving cars? I was very pleased with how quickly California slapped down Uber. Will California still be able to do that?

For those who don't remember: Uber was clearly experimenting with unready software on the roads with insufficient safety processes in place. When caught on camera running a red light, Uber blamed the human operator and weasel- worded their pr statement to imply that the car was not in autonomous mode. It in fact was in autonomous mode, and the driver was in observation mode. It's unclear if the failure was due to observer attention failure or lack of training.

<comment><USER9> Yes, it seems to prevent states from having their own safety policies. It makes an exemption for "performance standards" which I guess is omissions.

Page 2: [http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20170727/106347/BILLS...](http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20170727/106347/BILLS-115-HR3388-L000566-Amdt-9.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Federal overreach. I find it incredible that they want fully autonomous cars, but we do not yet have fully autonomous aircraft. This stuff isn't safe yet, and may not be for some time. If a state doesn't want to allow it on their roads, DC should not get to overrule them.

<comment><USER11> This entire thing sounds like they are trying to solve a problem that doesn't yet exist.

As you said, how can they effectively legislate something that is not even fully fleshed out yet? Is this really the time to centralize legislation at the federal level and block states?

The primary benefit of allowing states to do it instead is that you can have more liberal experimentation in places where it makes more sense, like less dense, deserty Nevada, with lots of freeways. While more densely populated highly urbanized parts of the country can be avoided until it's ready.

I can't believe they are selling this as 'speeding the deployment' because it would be 10x easier for tech companies to convince a state/local government than the federal one. And it seems they already convinced a few states already...

The only thing I can imagine this is "speeding up" is helping the major auto companies minimize their legal costs and allow them to focus on lobbying one level of government. As well as making it easier for these companies to guide the legislation towards their favour. This is how corporatism works in the US. The legislation is designed with big-co's in mind who have teams of lawyers and lobbyists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Automakers would have to submit safety assessment reports to regulators, but the bill would not require pre-market approval of advanced vehicle technologies. The measure now goes to the Senate, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers has been working on similar legislation."

You and I both know that without premarket approval, one or more companies are going to get careless and are going to kill people before the technology is ready. It's going to stain public acceptance for a quite necessary technology.

Here's a new medicine we're developing! It's gonna totally work great. The science says it's possible, we just need to work out the kinks while treating hundreds of thousands of people....

<comment><USER13> Even with government approval, there will be fatal accidents. This approach is better because it DIRECTLY holds automakers liable-- they can't claim immunity because some bureaucrat approved the vehicle. And it keeps politics and technical ignorance out of the development cycle.

Also, 3,000 people die every month on U.S. roads, your medicine analogy is wrong because there is much harm from the current system.

<comment><USER14> One issue is this.

Assume self-driving cars exist at some point. Assume they reduce fatalities by 90 percent. Ignore injuries. Now "only" 3,000 people are being killed by autonomous vehicles because "Hey, software isn't perfect and stuff happens." How many consumer products today kill that many people a year and the public is basically OK with it?

I'm not saying that the companies shouldn't make reasonable payments as a cost of doing business but if Ford manufacturing defects today were to kill 1,000 people a year they'd be sued out of existence.

<comment><USER15> There are plenty of medical procedures that save lots of lives but occasionally kill people. The public is ok with that because it is way better than the alternative.

<comment><USER14> Medicine generally is the closest analog. On the other hand when someone dies because of a rare drug side effect, lawsuits are common. There's a reason why the drug companies are protected from liability in the case of common vaccines [and that medical malpractice insurance is so expensive].

<comment><USER16> Except in this case, someone else's bad medicine can kill you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Would be great to see a similar national viewpoint on liability issues with SDCs. For example, who is liable (the car owner? manufacturer? algo writer?)

<comment><USER18> The people who pay for self driving car accidents will be the same people as those that pay for them today.

The insurance companies.

Only now, these insurance companies will be paying 1/4th the amount of money they were before, because of the reduced number of accidents.

<comment><USER19> I doubt it.

If my self driving Subaru causes an accident, I think Subaru will pay for the damages. And Subaru doesn't need to involve an insurance company in that transaction.

<comment><USER20> Volvo have already made it clear that they will take responsibility for incidents caused by autonomous Volvos. I presume that this is at least partly a marketing tool because I would certainly prefer a clear commitment on the part of the manufacturer of any autonomous car that I might buy.

<comment><USER21> Interesting. If that is a formal commitment, I imagine insuring a Volvo could be rather cheaper than some other cars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hmm. The section on exemptions to safety standards was pretty interesting. I wonder what brought that on.

The federal pre-emptions to state regulations was expected. States cannot have any higher standards than the federal ones, except for the vehicles that the states purchase for their own needs.

<comment><USER23> how come pre-emptions are expected? i would expect states cannot have any LOWER standards than federal (think min wage, emissions, etc) and can mandate higher if they choose

<comment><USER24> CA emissions have forced the automakers to offer basically two versions of every vehicle for the past half century or so. Nobody in the industry wants a repeat of that because it costs money.

<comment><USER25> In both cases the California standard was higher, improving the environment and saving lives.

What happened to the states being policy laboratories? I thought Republicans were for local control? Or is that only for school textbooks and baking wedding cakes.

<comment><USER24> >In both cases the California standard was higher, improving the environment and saving lives.

Not the lives of the people who would have been saved by safety features in a car they weren't driving because they couldn't afford it or because the implementation of a particular safety feature was a lower priority than the implementing a second variant of emissions equipment and calibration.

Stuff like this is fairly zero sum.

>What happened to the states being policy laboratories

The federal government could implement this as a FMVSS if they wanted.

Neither party has a monopoly on saying one thing and doing another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Question: Is it expected that, as a result of this legislation, there will be rigorous behavioral and performance definitions and standards that self- driving cars, however that is defined, will have to meet?

IOW, similar to, or in addition to, the FMVSS, will manufacturers have a series of regulations that define the minimum requirements of objective performance criteria for cars sold as "self-driving"? If so, what would those criteria be? Will there be software source code audits to exhibit that the software wasn't written specifically for the testing (vis-a-vis VW)? Finally, will superior test results become marketing fodder for manufacturers in the way acceleration and cornering are now?

<comment><USER9> It seems like the legislation would delegate responsibility for coming up with such policies to the Secretary of transportation and gives them 24 months to come up with such rules.

''§ 30129. Updated or new motor vehicle safety stand- 10 ards for highly automated vehicles 11 ''(a) SAFETY ASSESSMENT CERTIFICATION.— 12 ''(1) FINAL RULE.—Not later than 24 months 13 after the date of the enactment of this section, the 14 Secretary of Transportation shall issue a final rule 15 requiring the submission of safety assessment certifi- 16 cations regarding how safety is being addressed by 17 each entity developing a highly automated vehicle or 18 an automated driving system. Such rule shall in- 19 clude— 20 ''(A) a specification of which entities are 21 required to submit such certifications; 22 ''(B) a clear description of the relevant test 23 results, data, and other contents required to be 24 submitted by such entity, in order to dem- 25 onstrate that such entity's vehicles are likely to

[http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20170727/106347/BILLS...](http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20170727/106347/BILLS-115-HR3388-L000566-Amdt-9.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> One of the very few things that I see as a massive benefit of the current Trump Whitehouse:

Now would be the time for moonshot projects!

I bet Trump would be willing to free a massive budgets if under his term there were a realistic chance on something like the moonlanding. Or something that would ensure him a positive entry in the history books. I truly hople Thiel or Musk use this rare opportunity.

<comment><USER28> Most presidents would, but they don't create the budget.

<comment><USER29> And even if a budget were somehow allocated, much of it would be deferred into subsequent congressional terms. An 11- or 12-figure project that has to survive multiple presidential and congressional terms would be no easy feat.

<comment><USER27> I don't think he is interested much in the presidential terms coming after his 4 or 8 years. The most vivid example for that problem is the Iran hostage crisis which led arguably to the election loss of Carter (while he put massive effort into that issue) but only a few days after his loss and into Reagan's presidency, the hostages were released.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> tl;dr Under pressure from big investors and a public clamoring for road bots, politicians as usual cater to the whims of the moment.

2 years later: After numerous accidental deaths, the outcry of the public, and the behest of large tech donors fighting growing competition, politicians cater to the whims of the moment and heavily increase regulation and scrutiny of self-driving cars.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm confused...how is capping the number of FSD cars allowed to 25k accelerate anything? Am I missing something?

<comment><USER32> Yes. You're missing that the current cap is 0.

To elaborate: "Current federal rules bar self-driving cars without human controls on U.S. roads. States have issued a variety of different rules in the absence of clear federal guidance, and automakers have complained that California's rules are too restrictive."

<comment><USER31> 25k is less than 1% of most major auto manufacturers yearly production numbers. No article I've read on this news has put that into context and instead praises the legislation as liberating car manufacturers to bring FSD cars to the masses. Most people don't read past the headline let alone look into the facts of the article. Also nothing good EVER gets passed legislation unanimously. Last time the House passed legislation this quickly and unanimously was when they passed SOAPA. Something feels fishy about this. I haven't read the legislation directly but I bet if a journalist went through it fully, somethings would surface that people wouldn't like.

<comment><USER32> Given that this is from a base of zero, and the cap is set to rise by 4x to 100k by 2020 (which is when Waymo plans to _start_ introducing driverless cars), I do not think that this is at all a slow pace.

<comment><USER31> GM sells sells 10M cars per year so 100k would be 1% of that. Also who's Waymo? Tesla is planning to demonstrate a CA to NY trip with zero human intervention in just a few months and Elon has said they're shooting for 2019 for L5 FSD for their entire fleet made past October 2016 (they've already put in the hardware necessary for FSD so when the software is ready a simple OTA software update is all that's necessary for you're car to have full L5 autonomy)

<comment><USER9> > they've already put in the hardware necessary for FSD so when the software > is ready a simple OTA software update is all that's necessary for you're car > to have full L5 autonomy

That's bull. Every other company working on fully autonomous driving is using Lidar for obstacle detection, but Tesla's cars have none (only radar and cameras). I see no reason to think their software is any better than anyone else's (in fact I would say Waymo almost certainly ahead of them there).

Why should I have any confidence that they will be able to get better results than anybody else using cheaper hardware?

<comment><USER31> > I see no reason to think their software is any better than anyone else's (in > fact I would say Waymo almost certainly ahead of them there)

Waymo has 3 million miles of self driving data. Tesla has 3 BILLION. Perhaps that can be a reason?

<comment><USER33> Waymo can collect full video and sensor data from all the miles its cars drive. Tesla can collect some high-level logs. It's just not the same thing at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> IMO: The need to emphasize that accidents will still happen, just less than when humans are at the wheel.

</comment><comment><USER35> Dup of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15185262](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15185262)

</comment><comment><USER36> On the one side - i find this quite extraordinary- a government ready to push new technologys, instead of inhibiting it- on the other (slightly paranoid) side- what is in it for the senators?

Huge portions of traffic automated, because they really love new tech? Nah. They could have forwarded hyperloops and public traffic ages ago.

Do they get a bonus point for the next vote? Certainly not, a large part of the population earns its "good" livelihood with what this law is about to destroy.

So one wonders- can you push and incentivize the trading of still green bananas to the market- and the watch the populous lynch the producers/cripple with regulation, after the expected large failure happens? You would be seen as tech loving - and you could prevent social turmoil + reap large lobbyist gift basket.

Of course that would be very cynical and presume foresight on the part of the politician. Still.

<comment><USER37> I'm having trouble comprehending your fourth paragraph.

<comment><USER36> The idea is to take a new technology, that is bound to create horrible accidents, and push it faster forward then is its own pace - thus creating indirectly a surge of horrible accidents in the publics eyes, that would make the public rise against said technology.

A sort of - over-evaluation to kill a company- strategy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> screw the states and their autonomy!

<comment><USER39> If driving from one state to another, especially for business purposes, doesn't count as interstate commerce I don't know what does.

See the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3): The United States Congress shall have power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."

<comment><USER40> Exactly. For airplanes, the FAA is supreme and has consistently smacked down individual state/city initiatives to regulate air traffic (and rightly so, even as I'm a small federal government/states' rights advocate in general).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Well that's one way to look at creating jobs, I suppose...</comment>


5000 Rust questions on Stackoverflow - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/rust <comment><USER2> Congrats, but I feel rust is trying to squeeze in between two camps at war. Those who want memory safety (with a favorite language running in a VM) and those who want the power of raw pointers. I'm skeptic there is a need for a middle ground at the moment.</comment>


An Honest Conversation About Your Technology Use - <AUTHOR> http://bedfordtechgroup.wufoo.com/forms/an-honest-conversation-about-your-technology-use/

<comment><USER2> Sampling bias. The respondents will be disproportionately the sort of people who waste time online.

</comment><comment><USER3> The poll seems to be based on the premise that whatever time we spend not earning money is time wasted. I recommend reading "Momo" by Michael Ende for a different perspective. Time we spend learning new things is valuable. Time we spend communicating ideas is valuable. This isn't to say that all the time everyone spends on the Internet is worthwhile, or that many of us wouldn't be better off spending less time in front of a screen, but it isn't always easy to know beforehand what time is going to be well-spent and what isn't.

</comment><comment><USER4> Am I the only one that hates having to answer on a spectrum from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree"? I don't need 7 choices, just give me Yes/No options.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, that stopped me in my tracks. I'm really bad at answering shades of gray questions. _Don't make me think!_

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Daniel, this comes off as an official Wufoo poll. Maybe I am different, but I thought the Wufoo guys were taking this poll.

Would have been to put your name on it in the intro.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There's anecdotes, there's opinions, and then there is data. I spent a couple of hours this morning creating a WuFoo survey about "how addictive is technology?"

I would appreciate it if you guys could take the time to complete and spread the word. I will share whatever I learn back on HN, of course :) I think if we can get enough folks participating, it should make for very interesting reading.

<comment><USER7> Asking for zip code, age, gender, and earnings is a little much for an anonymous survey. That is pretty specific.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, sorry about that.

I was torn about what to put in there. No right answer, really. At the end of the day I decided I would rather have fewer answers with more data than more answers with fewer data.

Things like gender, income, and zip are pretty important, actually. (I should have asked eduction level! doh!) The thing is, without _any_ kind of specific tags, it's just a random opinion survey, whereas with the data it's possible to say something like "yeah, but that's only true for rich people living on the east coast", or "sure it shows a lot of internet usage, but the average age is 17, so probably you grow out of it" -- I think those kinds of observations are very important, and I wouldn't have wanted to do the survey without them. The goal here is to try to have a detailed conversation -- as anonymously as possible -- so that then I can post results back here and then we're talking data and not opinions so much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "I get out more now than I did five years ago"

I mean, 5 years ago I was in college...

<comment><USER9> Not everyone has an identical college or post-college experience.

<comment><USER8> Of course not; that's half the point. It's an interesting interaction effect that could only be assessed by asking. And with only 2-3 additional questions, you could cover a wide range of educational and post-educational experiences (where education refers to an institute of learning; not meant to imply that learning stops after you leave school).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was shocked by my answers.</comment>


Junkdepot.com - The marketplace for everything else - <AUTHOR> http://www.junkdepot.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> From : <http://www.profy.com/2007/03/16/junkdepot-startup/>

From the article: "Junkdepot is essentially a clean and simple site to get rid of junk you don't want. As far as selling your items, Junkdepot may even be superior to eBay because it is easier and it is FREE."</comment>